Look out! The original Emma Watson stages a comeback

Emma Watson, the star of the Harry Potter films, was allowed to use her name
only after an older actress agreed to give hers up.

Mandrake can disclose that the star of the Harry Potter films was, however, allowed to use her name only after an older actress called Emma Watson agreed to give hers upPhoto: Rex

By Richard Eden

7:26AM BST 22 Apr 2012

To her millions of fans around the world, there is only one Emma Watson. Mandrake can disclose that the star of the Harry Potter films was, however, allowed to use her name only after an older actress called Emma Watson agreed to give hers up.

Equity, the trade union, forbids actors from sharing the same name, so when the 10-year-old schoolgirl was cast as Hermione Granger in Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone in 2000, the older Emma Watson was asked if she would consider changing her name.

“Equity got in touch with me and said a young, unknown schoolgirl was to star in Harry Potter,” says the actress. “I was born Emma Watson and my father was the actor Moray Watson. So my acting name was always Emma Watson until I took a break from acting to home-school my two daughters.

“Equity said that, if I was to return to work, they’d have to change her name. I thought it was a hassle for her to change it when I could take my husband’s name, Vansittart.”

Now, however, Emma Vansittart is staging a comeback and faces the dilemma of whether she should reclaim her name. The actress is currently starring in The Supper Party, at the Old Sorting Office, a theatre in Barnes, south-west London. “Now my children are older, I’m ready to return to acting,” she says.

She is married to Rupert Vansittart, 54, a well-known character actor, who had roles in the film Four Weddings and a Funeral and the BBC drama Pride and Prejudice. “It’s a bit weird seeing it [Emma Watson] in huge lights,” she says of her name. “It can be sentimental.”

The actress is, though, likely to stick with Vansittart. “I’ve never met the other Emma Watson, but, of course, I’d be delighted,” she says.